Last year, the Kaufman-Wills Group sent a detailed questionnaire to a large number of journals, and received 248 responses from OA journals listed in the DOAJ, the largest number of OA journals ever surveyed. The responses turned up details on the business models of OA journals that are not visible from their web sites.

Among the Kaufman-Wills discoveries were two that I found especially striking:

Table 30 of the Kaufman-Wills report shows that 52.8% of DOAJ journals charge no author-side fees at all. The percentage for subscription journals was much lower: ALPSP journals overall (23.4), ALPSP for-profit journals (44.9), ALPSP non-profit journals (10.1), AAMC journals (14.7), Highwire subset (17.6). The Highwire subset consists (p. 3) of "those making their original articles freely available at some point after publication; that is Delayed Open Access journals."

As Sally Morris put it in her introduction to the report (p. 1), "On the financial side, we were very surprised to find just how few of the Open Access journals raise any author-side charges at all; in fact, author charges are considerably more common (in the form of page charges, colour charges, reprint charges, etc) among subscription journals." As Kaufman and Wills put it in the body of the report (p. 44), "Contrary to general belief, more than half of DOAJ journals did not charge author-side fees of any type, whereas more than 75% of ALPSP, AAMC, and HW subset journals did charge author-side fees."

See Cara Kaufman and Alma Wills, The Facts About Open Access, October 11, 2005. Their study was sponsored by the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and HighWire Press (HW), with additional data from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).http://www.alpsp.org/publications/pub11.htm

For convenience, let me call these the "two facts" or "two discoveries".

The two discoveries were not only unexpected, but strikingly favorable to OA. They should recast much of the debate about OA journals. (Kaufman and Wills made other discoveries that are more critical of OA journals.)

The report came out in October 2005, and in the next three months I saw no signs of the debate-recasting that I expected. Nevertheless in January 2006 I made this prediction:

"It will start to sink in that fewer than half of OA journals charge author-side fees and that many more subscription-based journals do so than OA journals....What will this mean in practice? People will stop talking about "the OA business model" for journals as if there were just one. People will talk less about how OA journals might exclude indigent authors and compromise on peer review and talk more about how toll-access journals do so. We'll start to document the range of models actually in use for OA journals and learn as much about them as we now know about the model that charges author-side processing fees. We'll get more creative in finding models that suit the range of niches, which differ significantly by discipline and by nation. We'll see OA journals use multiple sources of revenue or subsidies, allowing even those that charge author-side fees to lower their fees."http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/01-02-06.htm#predictions

This is the worst prediction I've ever made. The Kaufman-Wills figures have not been questioned, but their significance is not sinking in.

* Significant for five reasons

The two facts should have implications for at least five aspects of the debate about OA journals.

(1) They should put an end to the false but widespread assumption that there is just one business model for OA journals (the one misnamed the "author pays" model). Some OA journals charge author-side fees and some don't --in fact, most don't. That's at least two models. There are undoubtedly many different models among the no-fee journals, but we'll have to do a lot more digging to find out what they are. Opponents of OA like to say that "one size doesn't fit all" but in fact OA journals have embodied this truth from the beginning.

(2) The two facts should put an end to publisher objections that OA journals are more likely than non-OA journals to exclude indigent authors. The only basis for this charge was the hasty generalization that OA journals charged author-side fees and the ignorance that non-OA journals did so more often. Now we know that insofar as charging fees excludes indigent authors, many more subscription journals are guilty than OA journals. We know this even before we take into account that, when OA journals do charge fees, funding agencies are often willing to pay them and journals often waive them in cases of economic hardship.http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/11-02-03.htm#objreply

(3) The two facts should put an end to publisher objections that OA journals are more likely than non-OA journals to compromise on peer review. This charge is based on the hasty generalization that OA journals charge a fee for every accepted paper, and the presumption that charging such a fee creates a financial incentive to lower standards. Now we know that insofar as charging fees for accepted papers is an incentive to lower standards, many more subscription journals are guilty than OA journals. We know this even before we take into account that OA journals with many excellent submissions can often accept more papers without lowering standards (because they have no size limits) and OA journals with a dearth of excellent submissions can accept fewer papers without shortchanging subscribers (because they have no subscribers). We know it before we take into account that OA journal fees are much closer to "subsistence-level" compensation than typical subscription fees. We know it before we take into account that subscription journals justify price increases by pointing to the growing volume of published articles. We know it before we take into account that fee-charging OA journals have firewalls between their financial and editorial sides. We know it before we take into account that subscription journals with lower standards and lower rejection rates have higher profit margins (because they perform peer review fewer times per published paper). http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/03-02-04.htm#objreply

(4) The two facts should put an end to studies of author attitudes toward OA journals that misinform the interview subjects before interviewing them. I've been a referee for two studies that told authors that OA journals (per se, without qualification) charged "author fees" and then asked authors about their willingness to pay. The results were described as author attitudes toward OA journals (per se, without qualification) rather than author attitudes toward fee-charging OA journals.

(5) Finally, the two facts should put an end to the myth that if all journals converted to OA, then universities would pay more in author-side fees than they pay now in subscriptions. I want to say a lot more about this one, so let me start a new section.

* Would universities pay more?

Last month, two new calculations appeared purporting to show that high-output research universities would pay more in author-side fees for OA journals than they pay now in subscriptions for non-OA journals:

All three studies calculate the difference between present university costs for subscriptions and the costs for author-side fees in a hypothetical world in which all journals converted to OA. In doing the calculation, all three assume that 100% of OA journals charge author-side fees. That is, none takes into account the Kaufman-Wills finding that only a minority of OA journals do so. (The Davis study came out in August 2004 and could not have taken this into account.)

Moreover, all three assume that 100% of the fees would be paid by universities, none by funding agencies. Yet today, I don't know of a single university that has started to pay these fees, but I know more than a dozen funding agencies willing to do so (some overtly, some quietly). The assumption in the calculation not only reverses the current reality, and has universities pay more fees than funding agencies, it utterly zeroes out the contribution from funding agencies.

It's not surprising that under these unrealistic assumptions, high-output research universities would pay more in author-side fees than in subscriptions. But there are two ways to regard that conclusion. We can take it as a glimpse of our likely future under OA journals, or we can take it merely as the unfolding of the consequences of certain assumptions, likely or not. The first picture aims to be true to the world, while the second only aims to be true to the premises. But this means that it's either false or useless. As a picture of our likely future, it depends on the truth or likelihood of its assumptions, and so fails. But I assume that it is a true picture of its premises even if it's a false picture of the world. That is, I assume that the authors did the math accurately. So now we know what would happen if a couple of very unlikely things happened. Does this help us? Only to the extent that the scenario it describes is plausible, realistic, or likely.

The authors of these studies don't say that their assumptions are true so much as convenient. But OA opponents have seized upon their calculations as if they depicted our likely future under OA journals. This is a mistake. Anyone who wants to use the calculations as credible pointers to a likely future must go beyond what the three authors have done and argue that the assumptions are true or likely to become true. So far nobody has done that (with the two key assumptions on which I'm focusing here) and I don't see that anybody can.

It's not regrettable that the authors undertook to the show the consequences of an unrealistic what-if scenario. What's regrettable is the way the conclusion is easily misinterpreted --and widely taken-- as a picture of our future. It's equally regrettable that we don't yet have an equally careful picture of the consequences of more realistic what-if scenarios.

Let's continue to explore the hypothetical world in which all journals convert to OA. But instead of the very unlikely scenario in which 100% of OA journals charge fees, let's explore the scenario in which about half do and half don't --the scenario closest to a clean extrapolation from present patterns. Since present patterns may not hold, let's also explore the scenarios in which 0%, 10%, 20% ... 100% of OA journals charge fees. Let's use a wider range of assumptions, including some that are true today, and debate later about which are more likely or realistic for our future.

Let's also explore the scenario in which some considerable percentage of fees is paid by funding agencies. I've never seen a good estimate of what that percentage is today, so we can't extrapolate from the present. To be fair to all possibilities, then, let's explore the scenarios in which 0%, 10%, 20% ... 100% of author-side fees are paid by funders. Again, let's use a range of assumptions and debate later about which are more likely.

The results could be reported in a matrix showing when universities would pay more than they do now and when they wouldn't, and (for example) whether they'd pay more if 60% of OA journals charged fees and 30% of those fees were paid by funders.

Seeing the range of assumptions and their outcomes will not only help us discuss intelligently which scenarios are most likely, but also which are most desirable. We'll draw a map of hypothetical futures enabling us to steer toward the future we want.

It's somewhere between absurd and dishonest to assume that the one scenario already studied is the most likely, especially when it's so far from the present reality and when nobody is arguing that it's a likely evolution from the present reality. Let's stop citing the result as a picture of our future and start citing it as a picture of convenient but implausible assumptions that ought be refined and replaced by more accurate assumptions in follow-on calculations.

When we re-do the calculations with refined assumptions closer to today's reality, I'm convinced they will show that universities will pay *less* for OA journals than they pay today for subscription journals, even the universities with the highest research output. I'll bet a public apology on it.

Refining the calculations and publicizing the results is important and not just to set the record straight. Let me quickly put it in context. No serious OA advocate has ever said that OA literature is free to produce or publish. It can only be made free of charge for readers if people other than readers pay the bills. Producing broadcast television is not free of cost either; in fact, it's very expensive. But it's distributed to viewers without charge because others have agreed to pay the bills --for commercial TV, advertisers, and for public TV, donors of good will. That's the general model that will pay for OA journals, though the money can come from many sources other than advertisers and donors. So far, a good number of private foundations and public funding agencies have agreed to pay the bills (article processing fees) on behalf of their grantees. This helps researchers with grant funds, but unfortunately most researchers in most fields are not funded. We can close the funding gap for all academic researchers by persuading universities to start paying the fees on behalf of their faculty --or the subset of the fees not already covered by funding agencies. This will happen sooner rather than later if universities realize that paying these fees for OA journals will *cost them less* (and benefit everyone more) than paying subscription fees for toll-access journals.

* Strengths of the three studies

I've criticized the two false assumptions used in all three studies, but I don't want to give the impression that the studies are not valuable in other ways. Nor do I want to give the impression that they are all the same.

Davis is very good at sketching some of the turf battles and political difficulties that are likely to arise once universities start to pay OA journal processing fees. These problems, though very ugly, aren't enough to make me stop calling on universities to start paying these fees --today as an investment in a superior scholarly communication system, tomorrow from the savings on cancelled subscriptions--, but they are good reasons to start thinking about these problems now, before they arise.

Davis has helpfully made his data OA in an online spreadsheet. I'd have re-done his calculation myself but his spreadsheet isn't set up to make altering the two key assumptions easy. I haven't had time to figure out how to alter these two assumptions without an extensive rewrite of the sheet's structure and formulas. (Maybe a SOAN reader can with this.)http://dspace.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/236

Walters treats two scenarios separately. Under the first, OA journals charge the same author-side fee that PLoS journals charge ($1,500). Under the second, they charge whatever fee they need to generate the same revenue (including profit or surplus) that they receive today from subscriptions. Under the first scenario, all universities, even those with the greatest research output, would pay less for OA journals than they pay now for subscriptions. In fact, the savings would be significant. Top tier research universities, like the University of Michigan, would save about half their current serials budgets and low-output universities would save up to 97%. Only under the second scenario would the top tier research universities pay more. This distinction mitigates the harm of the two large false assumptions still present on his second scenario (that 100% of OA journals charge fees and that 100% of the fees are paid by universities), especially if we agree that subscription journals converting to OA will not maintain revenues at their old levels and will not need to.

BTW, Ray English shows in a LibLicense posting (April 27, 2006) that if the average fee per article was $3,363 or less, then even under Walters' second scenario all institutions would benefit from the conversion of subscription journals to fee-charging OA journals, *even if* we continued to assume that 100% of OA journals charge fees and that 100% of the fees are paid by universities. Walters showed what fee would be needed to preserve journal revenues at current levels, which came to over $6k/article, but not the fee needed to trigger savings for all universities, including those with the largest research output, which is what English computed.http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/0604/msg00125.html

Dominguez recognizes that some OA journals charge no author-side fees, but oddly, in her calculation, focuses on those that do charge fees, in effect assuming that all OA journals, or all the ones that matter, charge fees. She also understands that a good percentage of these fees is paid by funding agencies, though again, in her calculation she assumes that the research institution on which she focuses (CERN) would pay all of the fees incurred by its researchers.

* A few qualifications

(1) There are two senses in which "universities will pay more" in a hypothetical future in which all journals are OA. First, high-output research universities may pay more *than low-output universities* to support OA journals. Second, high-output research universities may pay more for OA journals *than they pay now* for subscription journals. (The same distinction applies to the senses in which high-output *nations* will pay more.) The first is almost certainly true and I've never contested it. Nor do I think that it's a reason to resist OA journals --it's the flip side of the unobjectionable fact that high-output research universities pay more than low-output universities for journal *subscriptions* and would *save* more when these journals convert to OA. But that's a subject for another day.

(2) I'm not saying that present patterns will hold in the future. Today most OA journals charge no author-side fees. Today there are far more non-OA journals than OA journals, both in percentages and absolute numbers, that charge author-side fees. Today universities pay virtually no OA journal fees and foundations pay a hefty percentage (though we don't know the percentage). All three patterns are in flux. My argument is that we should look at a range of likely futures, not just the one very unlikely future.

(3) I have no idea whether the fee-based OA journals are higher in quality, lower in quality, or on average equal in quality to the no-fee OA journals. As far as I know, no one has studied this question. It only comes up here because someone might reply to my argument as follows: "Yes, most OA journals don't charge fees today. But most of the OA journals in which elite researchers are most likely to publish do or will charge fees." This is plausible, but the opposite guess is also plausible. Until we know more than we know now about the range of OA business models, their stability, and their relationship to editorial quality, let's enlarge our calculation to include different scenarios.

In the meantime, we shouldn't treat guesswork about quality as evidence of quality, and shouldn't make assumptions about quality unless we make plural assumptions in order to investigate this space without bias. Studies that limit themselves to fee-based journals on the assumption that they the only ones that matter must not draw sweeping conclusions about "OA journals" as such, but speak carefully about "OA journals that we assume are high in quality" --just as the studies to date should have spoken carefully about "OA journals that charge fees".

If you want a few quick examples of high-quality no-fee OA journals, then I can point to BMC's Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry and the Max Planck Institute's three Living Reviews on solar physics, relativity, and European governance. Like the Beilstein Journal, many other high-quality, high-prestige, and high-impact journals may prefer to arrange institutional subsidies than to charge author-side fees.

* A few calls to action

I'd like to revise my prediction, but it's safer to make the future than to predict it. So let me issue a few calls to action instead.

(1) Spread the word about the two facts unearthed by the Kaufman-Wills study. When you see someone assume that there's only one business model for OA journals (namely, author-side fees), or that OA journals are more likely than non-OA journals to exclude indigent authors, or that OA journals are more susceptible than non-OA journals to lowering their standards in order to generate revenue, then correct them. We know they're wrong. When you see someone assume that universities will pay more in author-side fees than they now pay in subscriptions, correct them. We know they're not relying on a fact but on a what-if scenario with false assumptions. If enough people cite the two facts, maybe in a year or so, they really will start to sink in.

(2) Over time, especially as high prices and OA competition cause more cancellations of subscription journals, universities will enter the game of paying processing fees at the subset of OA journals that charge fees. When that happens, not only will we have to face and work out the ugly political scenarios sketched by Phil Davis, but we will have to investigate the many no-fee business models and their relationship to journal quality. We need to know how many different ways there are to pay the bills of a peer-reviewed journal and how well they work in different niches. Let's start now.

(3) As more institutions become willing to pay the processing fees charged by the subset of OA journals that charge fees (public funding agencies, private foundations, universities, sponsors), the terms "author fees" and "author pays" will be even more deceptive than they are today. Let's kill them once and for all. They're false when applied to the majority of OA journals that charge no fees. They're misleading when applied to journals whose fees are frequently waived or paid by sponsors on the author's behalf. And they're harmful for raising groundless or exaggerated fears among authors. They're much better for anti-OA FUD than accurate communication.

The author charge for article sponsorship is $3,000. The fee excludes taxes and other potential author fees such as color charges which are additional. Information about selecting this option is now available on the journal homepages at www.elsevier.com as well as Elsevier's author gateway site, authors.elsevier.com. The availability of this option will be offered to authors of the above-mentioned journals only after receiving notification that their article has been accepted for publication. This prevents a potential conflict of interest where a journal would have a financial incentive to accept an article.

Ten thoughts:

(1) This is a large, welcome step. Hybrid journals provide genuine OA for authors who select the OA option --or they can, depending on the fine print. The step is welcome for providing more free online access and welcome for putting Elsevier's weight behind it. Just as Elsevier's decision to permit postprint archiving in June 2004 broke the ice for many publishers who were not already green, this decision may also break the ice for those that are not already offering a hybrid option. (Note that Springer, Oxford, Blackwell and others already offer a hybrid option and broke the ice for Elsevier.)http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/07-02-04.htm#elsevier

(2) The step is welcome even though the program is flawed. It has essentially the same defects that the Springer Open Choice program had when it was first announced. Elsevier's processing fee is very high (the same as Springer's), and may generate a low uptake by authors, especially since traditional page charges will be laid on top of it (same as at Springer). A low uptake will not indicate low interest in OA. Nothing in the announcement or at the journal sites suggests that Elsevier will waive the fee in cases of economic hardship. Nothing suggests that it will deposit copies of its articles in an OA repository to guarantee their long-term OA availability. Further, Elsevier appears to demand transfer of copyright even for authors who select the new option (more below).http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/08-02-04.htm#springer

(3) Like other publishers who have decided to accept author-side fees, Elsevier will have to stop arguing that these fees corrupt peer review. Elsevier must follow PLoS, BMC, Hindawi, and others, in erecting a firewall between the editorial and financial sides of the enterprise so that peer-review judgments are not affected by the financial incentives. It has done so, but unfortunately the original announcement makes it seem porous and paradoxical: don't tell authors that the fee-based OA option even exists until the paper is accepted --but at the same time, tell them (through this announcement and the journal web sites) that the option exists. The explanation at the web site for Nuclear Physics A is much clearer: Elsevier won't ask authors for their access decision until it notifies them that their paper has been accepted. This makes sense.http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorshome.authors/nuclearphysicsa

(4) The page at Nuclear Physics A adds a detail missing from the original announcement: "When calculating subscription prices we plan to only take into account content published under the subscription model. We do not plan to charge subscribers for author sponsored content." This policy, pioneered by Springer, is becoming customary for hybrid OA journals.

(6) Currently, Elsevier only provides the free online access through ScienceDirect. It will be interesting to see how this aspect of the policy interacts with Elsevier's standing permission for postprint archiving (for the final version of the author's manuscript, not the published version). When authors choose the OA option, will Elsevier provide OA to the published edition in ScienceDirect and allow authors to provide OA to the final version of the manuscript through another repository? If so, very good. If not, then Elsevier would be retreating from its green policy and not offering OA in an independent venue --leaving authors and readers to wonder whether it will one day turn the OA articles on ScienceDirect back to TA (toll access). PLoS and BMC reassure their readers that their OA articles will remain OA by depositing in an independent OA repository --in their cases, PubMed Central. Elsevier seems to have no such plans.

BTW, I suspect that Elsevier's main reason for limiting the free access option to ScienceDirect is to help it measure download traffic more accurately. When copies exist in multiple repositories, some beyond your control, accurate download measurements are virtually impossible. I hope Elsevier will support OA through independent repositories, but I sympathize with its desire for good traffic data. This is an experiment after all. If the experiment supports OA, I want it to have the data it needs to know that it supports OA. More on this in point 10 below.

(7) The chief strength and the chief weakness of hybrid OA journals are the same: because only some authors in a given issue will select the OA option, libraries cannot justify cancelling their subscriptions. This postpones the day that libraries and universities will save money from OA journals, but for the same reason it reduces the risk for publishers and encourages them to try the experiment. Every celebration that another publisher is trying the experiment must be tempered with the realization that libraries and universities are still hurting --and vice versa, every lamentation that libraries and universities are still hurting must be tempered with the realization that the body of free online scholarship is growing.http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/04-02-05.htm#libraries

(8) Elsevier doesn't yet have a name for its new program, like Springer's Open Choice, Blackwell's Online Open, or OUP's Oxford Open. But in its announcement it refers to "sponsored articles", a "sponsorship fee", and a charge for "author sponsorship". So for now we can call this a sponsorship or author-sponsorship option, especially if we don't want to call it an OA option.

Will users be free to download and redistribute the sponsored copies from ScienceDirect or re-deposit them in independent OA repositories? We don't know yet but I suspect the answer will be no. From one point of view, this doesn't matter. Since Elsevier isn't calling the program "open access", it needn't live up to the definition. But in another sense it does matter: will users pay $3,000 plus page charges, and give up copyright, if they don't get full OA (and long-term reassurance of OA) in return?

But what is it now? It might still oppose full OA journals, at least in its own case, but will it still argue that OA journals are unsustainable, second-rate, a threat to peer review and the publishing industry? Will it still lobby against OA archiving initiatives on the ground that they increase the pressure on journals to accept author-side fees? In June 2004, "writing in [Elsevier's] in-house Review newsletter, Sir Crispin Davis warned that asking researchers to pay for their work to be published but then making it freely available on the internet 'could jeopardise the stable, scalable and affordable system of publishing that currently exists.' " http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1250464,00.htmlhttp://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2004_06_27_fosblogarchive.html#108860064672169750

Will we see arguments like that fade away? Let's hope. Will we see a retraction? Probably not.

(10) This is not Elsevier's first experiment with free online journal access. It's currently running a year-long experiment, started last August, to offer free online access to _Information & Computation_ (I&C) and 10 years' worth of its back issues. During the experiment, the journal will not charge author-side fees, but live off pre-paid subscriptions bundled into ScienceDirect. Subscribers will notice no change, not even any savings; only non-subscribers will notice a change --free online access. The purpose, therefore, isn't to see whether author-side fees could suffice to pay I&C's bills, or how large such fees would have to be. Instead, the purpose is to monitor journal traffic and see whether the price barrier has denied access to readers who would like access. http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/09-02-05.htm#elsevier

Elsevier hasn't announced the results of the I&C experiment yet and it may never do so in public. But it will undoubtedly use what it learns when analyzing the results of its new sponsorship experiment. What if it finds that free articles are downloaded significantly more often than priced articles from the same journal? What if it finds (as Harnad, Eysenbach, and others have found, see the top stories section below) that free articles are *cited* significantly more often than priced articles from the same journal? That might lead it to spread its sponsorship option to more journals. But what if it also finds that its sponsorship option generates a low uptake among authors? Will it lower the fee? Encourage rather than merely permit OA archiving? This isn't a fanciful dilemma. I suspect that this is exactly what it will face. Whatever its response, it will be acting on first-hand information generated in-house, putting it well ahead of many other publishers who are still watching from the sidelines.

In October 2003 the French financial analysis firm, BNP Paribas, said there was a 50% chance that in 10 years the major commercial publishers would convert to OA and continue to dominate scholarly publishing as they do today, "retaining their market share but with less pricing power." We're not seeing that yet, but we may be seeing intelligent probes by one such company to learn where the paths are in this still largely unmapped landscape.http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/11-02-03.htm#paribas

* Postscript. As I go to press, Elsevier's new experiment is 10 days old and I still haven't seen *any* coverage of it outside blogs and listservs.

----------

Follow-up on the Federal Research Public Access Act

The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 (a.k.a. FRPAA or the Cornyn-Lieberman bill) was introduced in the U.S. Senate last month and has already started a vigorous public debate. Supporters have gone public with their support and critics have gone public with their criticism.

I described the bill at length in last month's issue. But since that issue came out on the same day the bill was introduced (actually, a few minutes after the bill was introduced), I couldn't include any of the press coverage. I'm glad to catch up in this issue.

After Senators Cornyn and Lieberman introduced the bill on May 2, it was referred to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, chaired by Sen. Susan Colllins (R-ME), where it is still under consideration. On May 8, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) joined Cornyn and Lieberman as a co-sponsor of the bill.

Legislatively, it's still very early and there's no more to report yet.

* But on May 31, the bill's prospects shot up when a Harris poll showed that an overwhelming majority of Americans wanted OA for publicly-funded research. 83% wanted it for their doctors and 82% wanted it for everyone. 81% said it would help medical patients and their families cope with chronic illness and disability. 62% said it would speed up the discovery of new cures.

For each poll question, a fairly large percentage of respondents checked "neither agree nor disagree" (between 13% and 30%), with the result that only tiny minorities actually disagreed with the OA propositions. Only 3% didn't want OA for their doctors, 4% didn't want it for themselves, 5% didn't think it would help patients or their families, and 10% didn't think it would accelerate research.

The poll numbers are a shot in the arm for the CURES Act and FRPAA, the two bills now before Congress that would mandate OA to publicly-funded research. Scientists and scholars may not carry much weight in Washington these days, but strong poll numbers from a respected pollster do. This poll shows that OA is as American as apple pie. Toll access is so unpopular that George Bush's numbers are 10 times higher.

* Monitoring the press coverage of the FRPAA, I've been struck by something I also noticed during the debate on the NIH policy. Some mainstream news media covering the proposal give much more space and detail to publisher objections than to the proposal's own rationale or to the supporting arguments from researchers, universities, libraries, public-interest advocacy groups, and the decision-makers who drafted the policy. It's as if these media companies were dedicated to business news rather than general news. With the FRPAA last month, we saw this syndrome in the stories from the New York Times, Reuters, and The Guardian. Worse, we saw it in Science Magazine.

Don't get me wrong: the publisher objections should be reported in full, and I'm never surprised or disappointed when the business press focuses more on the consequences for business than the consequences for scientists, citizens, or public policy. Nor am I surprised when the business press gives more attention to publisher complaints than it gives to the OA policies that triggered them or to the answers from the policy's sponsors and supporters. I'm only surprised and disappointed when the general press follows the business press in this practice.

When Congress considers a controversial bill on the environment, opposed by business, some media assume that the protesting businesses must be right. But most assume that there are important values on both sides and cover the story as an honest disagreement. Why is science policy different? Do news media have any reason to think that friends of science are more likely to be wrong than friends of business? Than friends of the environment?

No doubt, the world of science is much smaller than the world of business, and far fewer readers of general news media care about it. But if *that's* the explanation here, then the principle seems to be to count noses before covering the facts. In any conflict between science policy and business, business is always right --which we know because the proper criterion is the interest of business --which we know because, well, we know who our readers are. Forget journalism and cheerlead for the economic sector representing the largest share of readers and advertisers.

* Members of Congress are being lobbied hard by publishers opposed to the bill. So far, the lobbying is hotter in the Senate than the House, though it will spread to the House as soon as FRPAA has a House sponsor (watch this space).

If your organization supports OA, then issue a public statement endorsing FRPAA and send copies to your members and the media. (Also send me a copy and I'll publicize it through the blog and forum.)

If your organization is US-based and non-profit, then join the Alliance for Taxpayer Access (no charge). The ATA lobbies effectively for OA to publicly-funded research, and when it speaks to policy-makers, it's message carries the weight of the ATA member organizations.http://www.taxpayeraccess.org

This is my selection of the most important OA developments since the last issue of the newsletter, not counting any developments covered in the lead essays above. When items have two URLs, the first is usually for the item itself and the second for my blog posting about it on Open Access News. For other developments that didn't make the cut, see Open Access news, which I update daily, and which has a browseable and searchable archive.http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html

Here are the top stories from May:

* German Parliament considers an OA bill.
* National OA policies emerging in four other countries.
* Institutional OA policies adopted in two countries.
* OA repositories pop up at institutions in three countries.
* Gunther Eysenbach confirms the OA impact advantage.

* German Parliament considers an OA bill.

The Upper House of Germany's Parliament (Bundesrat) is considering a bill to permit author self-archiving of journal articles six months after publication regardless of the terms in a copyright transfer agreement the author might have signed.

Here's an English-language summary of the bill by Gerd Hansen, an OA advocate, doctoral candidate at the Max-Planck-Institute for Intellectual Property Law in Munich, and the author or at least the inspiration for the new bill. From his email:

The provision that is currently being discussed is based on the wording I have proposed in an article on “Access to scientific information” published in GRUR Int. 2005, 378, p. 17 (until this very moment only in German). The Bundesrat now asked for a provision (p. 7) that would support OA in particular by giving authors the right to make their articles available online, even if they have granted exclusive rights to the publisher, if the following requirements are met:

--only after expiration of 6-months since first publication
--research predominantly based on public (tax payer) money
--only publications in periodicals
--non-commercial purpose of post-print-publication
--author is obliged to use his final version of the article

The bill permits author-initiated OA to publicly-funded research in Germany, though without mandating it. A mandate would be stronger, of course. But even many mandates (proposed or adopted) make vague or counterproductive exceptions for cases in which authors transfer copyright to publishers and publishers dislike the funder's OA policy. The German bill elegantly resolves doubts about permission and makes publisher dissent irrelevant. Moreover, Germany already has something of a mandate. The OA policy of Germany's DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), the country's primary public funding agency, tells grantees that they should deposit their DFG-funded research in OA repositories.

The German OA bill is unusual for seeking to facilitate OA by amending copyright law, a strategy tried in the US with the Sabo Bill (June 2003) and since abandoned. In a country more likely to amend copyright law in the wrong direction than the right direction, like the US, this is a very difficult and uncertain strategy. But where it can succeed, it can be direct, effective, and durable. Is Germany such a country? We'll soon see.

Klaus Graf points out that an existing provision of German copyright law (§ 38 Urheberrechtsgesetz) gives authors the right to self-archive without any embargo unless they waive this right in a contract with the publisher. Hence, he argues that the Hansen bill is unnecessary except to prevent contracts from nullifying the right to self-archive.http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/2060875/

Four other countries either adopted or began considering national OA policies --all in May. Together with the German OA bill these are signs of growing momentum not only toward OA, but toward national commitments to OA.

On May 15, India's National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Rourkela adopted an OA mandate. According to the policy summary in ROARMAP, "All research papers by faculty and students, MTech (Research) and Ph. D. thesis is to be self-archived in Dspace@nitr or it should be submitted to the librarian for archiving, so that others interested may benefit by referring to these documents. The Administration may use this archive for assessment of faculty performance when needed." NIT's is the sixth worldwide university-level OA mandate and the first from India. For the other five, see the institutions with asterisks by their names in ROARMAP.

On May 9, Humbolt University Berlin adopted an Open Access Declaration. The original is in German, of course, but here's an excerpt from the shorter, English summary on ROARMAP: "Humboldt-University recommends its scientists and researchers to publish their articles in Open Access Journals and to publish their monographs on Open Access platform. Postprint versions of already published articles should be deposited on the Document and Publication Repository of Humboldt-University. The edoc server will also host preprint versions.... Humboldt-University encourages emphatically all scientists to insist on keeping the copyrights during the conclusion of author contracts."

In a careful study, Gunther Eysenbach has confirmed earlier studies showing that OA publication triggers a larger and faster citation impact than non-OA publication. He compared the citation tallies for OA and non-OA articles from the same journal (PNAS) and disentangled the effects of many "confounders" from the effects of OA itself. In his words, "To my knowledge, this is the first longitudinal study of a cohort of OA and non-OA articles providing direct and strong evidence for preferential or earlier citation of articles published originally as OA. It is also the first study showing an advantage of publishing an article as OA on the journal site over self-archiving (i.e., making the article otherwise online accessible). The strength of the OA effect is particularly surprising because PNAS is a widely available journal that is accessible for most researchers through their library. In addition, articles are made freely available to nonsubscribers 6 mo after publication. The effect of OA publishing may be even higher in fields where journals are not widely available and where articles from the control group remain 'toll-access.' "

There's some controversy about whether some earlier results, especially by Tim Brody, Chawki Hajjem, and Stevan Harnad, are the same or only similar to some of Eysenbach's results. But no one doubts that Eysenbach has new and valid results, or that he has persuasively advanced the case that OA helps authors and journals build their citation impact.

While there have been many previous studies of the OA impact advantage, none has made the splash that Eysenbach's has. This is an important result in its own right, both for spreading the news far and wide and for showing what an effective dissemination and impact machine PLoS Biology has become.

* The Second International Conference on Open Source Systems (OA is among the topics)http://oss2006.dti.unimi.it/Como, Italy, June 8-10, 2006

* Preserving Quality in an Open Environment: towards new contexts for sharing scholarly production and open content educational materials (sponsored by the Open Culture Promoter Group) (OA is among the topics)http://www.aepic.it/conf/index.php?cf=6Como, Italy, June 9, 2006

* Copyright at a Crossroads: The Impact of Mass Digitization on Copyright and Higher Education (sponsored by the The Center for Intellectual Property at University of Maryland University College)http://www.umuc.edu/cip/symposium/Adelphi, Maryland, June 14-16, 2006

* I've added 30 new conferences to my conference page since the last issue. In the next few days I'll delete the second asterisk marking them and the new entries will blend into the rest of the collection.http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/conf.htm

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This is the SPARC Open Access Newsletter (ISSN 1546-7821), written by Peter Suber and published by SPARC. The views I express in this newsletter are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of SPARC.

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